Police work has its lighter side

Published: Saturday, January 18, 2014 at 04:00 PM.

“I made contact with the mother who was upset because she told her son not to have his girlfriend in his room,” the officer wrote. “She heard him talking this morning and saw that the girlfriend was in the room. She disciplined her son, and he eventually went to school.”

The officer told the woman that they would be glad to have a chat with him when he returns, if that is her desire.

In an unrelated call, police were also anxious to have a chat with a woman known only as “Tiara.”

A man reported that he was staying in a local motel with a woman “that he brought back from a bar. When he woke this morning, Tiara was gone and so was his wallet and LG phone.”

The man says he’s not sure where the woman lives and that when he called his phone a man answered.

Finally, police had to deal with the age-old problem of two people fighting for one parking space that degenerates into an argument involving bystanders and a Taser.

The “victim” told police “that a vehicle had taken the parking space he was waiting on,” so he confronted the two men who got out of it. A fourth man, who saw that argument, intervened and ended up in an argument with the men in the car.

The next time you think a police officer is acting a little stand-offish, remember this: He or she may have just left a call involving fire, dwarf coffins, sacrificial items and chickens.

Time is precious these days, with work, home and hunting keeping me on the move, so every now and then I try to take a break for some light reading and work my way through the weekly police reports. Back in the ’80s when I was a cub reporter, one of the first beats thrown at me was covering cops. That involved daily looks at police reports from the Panama City Police Department and Bay County Sheriff’s Office.

They detail what a day in the life of a cop is really like as opposed to what you might think. For every call that sends adrenaline racing, there are a dozen that leave you wondering what the heck some people are thinking.

That was the case then, and reading through some Panama City police reports Friday, I’m here to report that nothing has changed as it goes to humanity.

Here’s what I found in a two-day period last week, starting with the chickens.

A Panama City police officer was sent to what sounded like a simple shed fire.

When the officer arrived, the property owner said he was attempting “to braid an unknown item over a lit candle and the braid caught on fire and spread throughout the shed.” That brought the fire department, too.

The officer was leaving the shed with the owner when he “noticed a small two foot coffin and sacrificial items inside the shed.”

His curiosity piqued, the officer looked closer.

“There were medieval cups, candles and other religious, sacrificial materials,” the officer wrote in a report. “There were also multiple chickens running loose around the property.

“The fire was extinguished and this report was made to document the strange items seen in the shed. Nothing further.”

The morning before, it wasn’t a shed fire but a burning desire by a parent to regain control that brought a call to police.

That officer reported he was dispatched to a home “in reference to a disrespectful child.”

The child (his age was not given) had already left for school when the officer arrived.

“I made contact with the mother who was upset because she told her son not to have his girlfriend in his room,” the officer wrote. “She heard him talking this morning and saw that the girlfriend was in the room. She disciplined her son, and he eventually went to school.”

The officer told the woman that they would be glad to have a chat with him when he returns, if that is her desire.

In an unrelated call, police were also anxious to have a chat with a woman known only as “Tiara.”

A man reported that he was staying in a local motel with a woman “that he brought back from a bar. When he woke this morning, Tiara was gone and so was his wallet and LG phone.”

The man says he’s not sure where the woman lives and that when he called his phone a man answered.

Finally, police had to deal with the age-old problem of two people fighting for one parking space that degenerates into an argument involving bystanders and a Taser.

The “victim” told police “that a vehicle had taken the parking space he was waiting on,” so he confronted the two men who got out of it. A fourth man, who saw that argument, intervened and ended up in an argument with the men in the car.

One of those men “pulled out a common self-defense tazer [sic], however (the fourth man) was not afraid and continued the verbal altercation.”
The men in the car said they didn’t take anyone’s parking space, but one did admit “he pulled the tazer because (the fourth man) was acting aggressive and had a significant size advantage over him.”

Police determined the Taser was legally possessed and “all individual were briefed of the report and advised to leave the area.”

There was a time when that would’ve sounded like a pretty fun day to me, but anymore I prefer to focus on what’s going on inside of my head without exposing it to the general population.

Mike Cazalas is editor of The News Herald. Contact him at mmcazalas@pcnh.com or 850-747-5094.